jQuery Saves the Day: A History
As I was researching the history of jQuery in preparation for this blog post, it’s release honestly reminded me more of the Burning Man mantra than the dull documentation that usually accompanies a JavaScript library. jQuery was created by developer John Resig, at the ripe old age of 22, and was first released at a tech event called BarCampNYC in 2006. Among the event’s principal tenant as stated on their website is “No spectators, only participants.” They’re a self-proclaimed “unconference” that encourages people to share and learn in an open environment. Resig would fit in perfectly at this would-be Black Rock City as he was eager to share his library with the world.
Like many great inventions, Resig’s jQuery was ultimately born of frustration and the desire to solve a persistent problem. He was a computer science student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, working largely with JavaScript, and growing frustrated by the difficulties in writing cross-browser code. Lack of standardization in the mid- 2000s meant that developers would have to account for different browser behaviors and edge cases often making the work tedious and inefficient. jQuery would take care of this problem almost entirely.
Below is an excerpt from jQuery’s code archive that demonstrates the early manifestation of this process.
But how exactly did Resig arrive at this solution that would revolutionize how the world read and wrote JavaScript? He discusses his processes and inspiration in an interview with UMich School of Information professor Charles Severance.
Resig spent years at RIT building a series of tools and personal libraries to help make JavaScript easier to write but wanted to share them with the world in a clear and concise manner. He drew his original inspiration from the British developer Charles Willison who had written a library called css_selector.js and which allowed users to select and manipulate CSS elements. The jQuery selector pattern was drawn directly from this and then improved upon to do more specific and complicated things.
At the time of development in 2006, Prototype JS was the biggest and most popular JavaScript library but was largely focused on the language rather than the language in the browser which was Resig’s main frustration with the language. He would instead focus his energies on developing tools that could manipulate HTML within the Document Object Model (DOM). This grew into what would become jQuery (it was almost called jSelect but the domain name was taken!), and which continues to be the premier DOM manipulation library.
But the ease, power, and “simplicity” of jQuery is not what Resig believes was the secret to his success. He’s insisted that code is only a small part of what made jQuery such a successful open-source project. Instead, he points to what is undoubtedly the most “boring” part of code — documentation.
From the first day of its release in 2006, Resig had clear and precise documentation to which he credits much of the library’s quick ascension. From 2006 to 2007, the year following its release, jQuery was the only open-source JavaScript library with documentation. Most libraries expected developers to view the source code but put little effort into helping others understand it. Resig’s first hire was actually a community manager, someone who would assist him in answering queries and essentially providing customer service to developers wishing to adopt the library. Throughout this time jQuery continued to be a side project while he attempted a startup (and failed, even geniuses make mistakes) and eventually worked for Mozilla where he was eventually allowed to work on jQuery during office hours. It was then that he set up the infrastructure that has allowed jQuery to thrive even after he stepped down and began his current career at Khan Academy. On behalf of EVERYONE, thanks John Resig for making our lives a whole lot easier.
